How To Sync The Audio or Subtitles in VLC

In this tutorial we will look at how to sync the audio or subtitles in real-time whilst watching a film in VLC. One of the most common ways for the audio or subtitles to become out of sync can be the way that you either transcoded your film when you tried to make a backup copy of your DVD’s and/ or the subtitle file (.srt) wasn’t made for the version you have (eg: it was created for PAL and the video is in NTSC), or you simply have a bad copy. To remedy this is quite simple and can be done as you watch the film and start to notice that the actors voice isn’t quite matching up with the speed of the film.

Please note that this is not a permanent remedy, but will make watching the film more enjoyable.

Right, whilst the film is playing, locate the Adjustments and Effects window by going Tools>Track Synchronization:

This will then lead to the main window we need:

If it’s the audio that is out of sync then you only need to worry about the top part (marked 1 above) so simply keep adding a positive or negative value depending on whether the audio is in front or behind the film. If it’s in front of the audio, give it a negative value until you notice it’s synced. Likewise if it’s behind the audio, then give it a positive value. You may also find this easier to do via keyboard short cuts, in which case you don’t need this window and can simply press J or K on your keyboard whilst watching the film which will do the same thing. J will advance the audio over the video, and K will bring the audio back.

If the audio is fine, but you are having issues with the subtitles not matching the actors voice, then again you can use this same window, but use the 2nd one down to increase or decrease the Synchronization of the subtitles. Again, you don’t have to use this window and can instead use the keyboard short cuts which are G and H. G to advance the subtitles and H to bring them back, although I prefer to use the Adjustments and Effects window so I can physically see it.

You can finely tune the syncing this way for either issue as it move the audio/ subtitles in milliseconds.